Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘Red Cent Flattener’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (16): ‘Red Cent Flattener’

Category: doohickey

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1976

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Oklahoma

Collection Report: M-A-C (16) was discovered indirectly, through a suspicious increase in recruitment at a U.S. Army recruitment office. One of our collectors took in several of these recruits himself, reporting that the men, always younger than 25, either attempted to ‘pay’ for their own recruitment or engage in a coin flip wager with him, always using an unusual coin.

Of the initial twelve turned over to the Catalog, all were pennies flattened into a new design by a novelty coin-flattening machine. They were bordered with shooting stars and eagle talons on the bottom, and each bore an inscription; however the inscription, despite a common goal, was different each time.

Paired with a unique insult was an order to join a branch of the United States military, usually the army or navy. Examples include: [MAC-16-3: ‘You’re nothing but an empty ice cream cone. Go let the navy scoop some character into you!’], [MAC-16-8: ‘You’re a son of a bitch too stupid to play fetch, so go fetch yourself an army recruitment form!’], and [MAC-16-11: ‘You’re so spineless that when I ordered you to join the army, you’d already done it!’]

Through questioning of the temporarily obedient recruits, the coins were traced to a seasonal fireworks store off Highway (REDACTED). In its darkest recesses there stood an American flag-paneled novelty penny flattening machine. In exchange for 75 cents, 76 counting the penny, it returned the insulting and recruiting tokens with an obnoxious bell jingle that could not be heard beyond the aisle despite its ear-splitting volume.

Though the messages had an immature and simplistic nature, the recipient, upon handling the coin, often became obsessed with obeying, at least until they were officially recruited. Regrets usually follow.

Typically such an item, even with the language element, would be classified as a whatsit, but M-A-C (16) demonstrated a degree of intelligence when collectors attempted extraction by spitting out a coin directly onto exposed skin and recruiting one of our staff with the message: ‘Every cent is red to a commie! Defend your country!’

The only injury in the resulting scuffle was caused by the unbalanced machine falling on an ankle. The exposed collector returned to normal after the machine had left the building.

Current Collector: Phillips ‘don’t you f***ing redact me’ Phillips-Head, senior rank

Notes from Collector: “All you’ve gotta do is go toe to f***ing toe with it, then it can’t recruit you. It only gets the weak-minded and I’m the smartest f***ing bastard since the bicentennial. It calls your mother a f***ing whore, and you call its mother a f***ing whore right back, whether machines got mothers or not.”

Current Status: active

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Twitch Stream Stories Redux #5: Molting Appointment

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

Molting Appointment

prompt provided by AnxietyBatman

Agata never thought her knowledge of candle flames would change. Even from her infancy, their behavior was constant. They were lit, they melted their base, and then they were extinguished. Every candle had done this, every one she read by at night, every one they decorated cakes with… but now, in those dark cold waters, the candles surprised her.

She recognized it as the one placed in her icy dead hands hours ago. It was certainly something to watch one’s own funeral from behind stiff eyes; her mother and father were there, as she had fallen at the early age of twenty-five. No spouse, so that spot next to her coffin was empty. Continue reading →

Mysterious Americana Catalog: ‘NGA Sign’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (15): ‘NGA Sign’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1996

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Illinois

Collection Report: Technically the MAC was a combination of elements, triggered only when a certain sort of sign was placed on a specific tree house. From then on the sign was imbued with the characteristic properties, regardless of how long or far the separation from the house element.

(REDACTED) was a (REDACTED) year old girl who stumbled across the dilapidated tree house and entered out of curiosity; she was immediately overcome by symptoms resembling a grand mal seizure.

When paralysis ceased she found she had undergone a physical metamorphosis of sex to a male. (Males produced this way display no changes in personality, but do insist on a masculine name, in this case ‘Alden’.)

Alden then recalled the sign placed at the entrance, which clearly stated in permanent marker ‘no girls allowed’. This presented a problem, as he (correctly) feared exiting the tree house would undo the transformation, with the resulting seizure dropping him from a deadly height. With no food or water, he had only a day or two to resolve the issue.

Left behind by the previous occupant were several tools, including a claw hammer and nails. Utilizing these Alden tore up the floorboards, constructed a smaller platform, and lowered it out of the tree house onto a crux of branches, thinking he could drop onto it and transform safely, then climb down. He was successful.

Childhood gossip attracted a crowd, and three more NGA signs were produced with various inks and materials. Each, when placed on the exterior of any enclosed artificial structure, endowed that structure with the same effect. Male phenotypes who enter are completely unaltered. Transformation occurs just slowly enough to escape moment-to-moment perception, taking around thirty minutes in total.

One child’s uncle had completed the Catalog’s correspondence course as a spotter, and made a report. All but the original signs were destroyed by the Catalog, as was the tree house, but that was done by an angry parent who feared permanent alterations to their child’s sexuality.

Current Collector: Transitory Mel (he/him), senior rank

Notes from Collector: “Stops 50% of intruders. Never had a stolen MAC and I never will.”

Current Status: active

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Twitch Stream Stories Redux #4: The Willow and the Cross

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

These stories were written live on stream based on prompts provided by the viewers. They have been edited, with this second more in-depth edit occurring much later, but not meaningfully rewritten or expanded so as to preserve the spirit of the exercise. Sadly, the prompts themselves were not recorded until many stories in.  Sometimes the prompts were silly challenges, or quirky thoughts, or dark ideas, or utter nonsense.  I did my best each time.

If you enjoy this, please check out the other activities from the stream. If you would like something longer and much more thoroughly planned, simply investigate my more traditional work at the top of the page.

The Willow and the Cross

prompt provided by Silentwillow and Chaytoncross

There are only so many places in the modern world where a spirit can live. Add to that the constant arguments between the five high spirits, and you often get hostile neighbors, whose arguments are interpreted by humans as chills in the wind or the raucous cawing of ravens.

One such argument occurred in the backyard of the Fander family in the summer of 1981. The children were off enjoying the pool of the wealthier neighbors and the parents were busy repairing their aged car and shouting at each other when the nuts and bolts didn’t fit quite right. Continue reading →

Grotto Beats (Jerma985 found poetry)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

Grotto Beats

a micro-collection of experimental ‘found poetry’ from the materials of Jeremy Elbertson (Jerma985)

compiled and slightly altered by

Blaine Arcade

We’re the Rats

Rats,
we’re rats;
we’re the rats-

We prey at night,
we stalk at night,
we’re   the   rats!

I’m the giant rat
that makes all   of   the   rules;
let’s see what kind of trouble we
can get ourselves into…

Continue reading →

The Pick-Knows

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

(estimated reading time: 13 minutes)

The Pick-Knows

by

Blaine Arcade

I had a bad morning guys, even though I everytasked as goodly as the other mornings in my collection. First thing out of the matchbox and quilt I cut the iron filings with coffee grounds to really wake up the magnets, angled the solar coins to bounce crystal clear sparkles to the costume glass and gold-painted links, beat the stickers to free the hairs, checked the electric frog battery for tangy white creep, and oiled the swatter so it misses the flies so I don’t miss the joke of the huge-mans missing the flies.

But the morning was still bad. Had to be somebody else’s fault. They made 6 AM sharp, 7:11 sticky, 8 a bad breakfast, 9 lives long, and 10:04 no good buddy. All my stuff looked goldy-oldy at a glance. Then I amble up the right-by and it catches my surprise (that I didn’t even leave out to stale) by doing some pose of the possible that benefits me leastways. Continue reading →

Heirs of Cain: Venus in League

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

Severin Molochi is in love with a goddess.  She’s not the kind found in a church, or that you can take with you to church for that matter.  She’s of the old, muddy, animal line of Cain: those who gained power in the world’s first murder.  Just as Severin and his goddess Wanda are settling in their new home, setting up her future dominion, her jealous siblings come calling, but they’re not after her.  They want every gods’ most valuable asset, the mortal chosen as the conduit between them and the people, who in this case happens to share her bed.

Heirs of Cain, a gothic horror fantasy erotic thriller novelette series, continues here.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 16 minutes)

Heirs of Cain

Venus in League

Including her name serves no purpose, for she was never going to be a citizen of our village. Such was her stated intent, with so much simulated earnestness that I could not smell the trick, nor could my goddess, lover, and wife Wanda Blasphemer Pelts, until she encountered the applicant up close that is.

Her waiting period was nearly over, which all potential residents of Quarantown had to endure to even step foot over our borders and barriers, both obvious and arcane. The plague called Throng’s Delirium, the impetus for the founding of Quarantown in the first place, before it was commandeered, still in secret, by my Wanda, and before I was wooed as her chief disciple and chiefest confidante, still ravaged the continent. Continue reading →

Snakewaist: Hurricane They (finale)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ Leave a comment

(back to part one)

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 35 minutes)

Winds of Change

Much of their mission passed as a blur once Clove was brought into the fold, as she immediately turned it around, bringing all of them, especially the Spare Changelings, under her wing.

Shortly after the rescue they all reconvened inside Clove’s apartment high in the tree. It was like a fruit, dangling from a high branch and paneled in glass all the way around, its three floors suspended by black wires. It only took meeting her to understand how she secured what had to be one of the best views in the entire tree. Continue reading →

Snakewaist: Hurricane They (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

Finally, justice for the elemental spirits powering hurricanes.  The humans have decided to use gender neutral pronouns when referring to them, as should have always been the case.  What’s this!?  protest?  They shall know the wrath of the newest and strongest storms in a climate they stoked themselves!  All the elementals need is a harbinger to guide them…

Chaxium and Ladyspiller Onthinice aren’t your typical fairies.  The couple has now spent years on the road, adventuring and battling threats in a changing world with the help of their transforming lizard-shaped vehicle Snakewaist.  Something is amiss with the weather down south, so they head off to investigate, but their best bet for help is Chaxium’s old flame Clove.  Hurricane They is the first novella in a new trilogy for the Snakewaist saga, so feel free to get caught up.

(estimated reading time: 1 hour, 20 minutes)

(estimated reading time for entire novella: 2 hours, 55 minutes)

Snakewaist

Hurricane They

by

Blaine Arcade

Squall Tormenta

Occurring in the Bermuda Triangle does not place it there, responsible as it is for many of the famous disappearances at that latitude, and even more longitudinally. Occurring in the Gulf of Mexico does not place it there either. Squall Tormenta exists within an ocean current, so it is placed everywhere that current may touch and can occur without being accused of having moved at the last minute even when that is what happens, to prevent certain undesirable elementals from showing their youthful faces.

Somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico the waters split in a most unbiblical fashion. Like divorcing tectonic plates they opened and drained into themselves, creating a marine canyon of raging waterfall walls and churning floor. From out of the depths came shadows, shadows that pierced walls and floor to reveal both rusted hulks and boulders uprooted. Continue reading →

Mysterious America Catalog: ‘True Knothole’

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

M-A-C (14): ‘True Knothole’

Category: whatsit

Collection Date: (REDACTED), 1979

Collection Location: (REDACTED), Oregon

Collection Report: This MAC was independently discovered by two parties simultaneously; unfortunately only one was trained to handle such things with caution first and discretion second.

The party affiliated with us, Collector (REDACTED), then junior rank, was following the newly established ‘Horseshit Protocol’, by which agents of the Catalog identify and ferret out local ‘horseshit’, ‘bullshit’, ‘(REDACTED)shit’, and ‘batshit’ stories connected to uncatalogued and improperly stored MACs.

His initial lead was a deceased finch that, when dissected, displayed unnaturally braided feathers, Celtic knot intestines, and tangled muscle and optical fibers.

In one of the earliest examples of the protocol’s effectiveness, he was able to trace it back to a (REDACTED) tree approximately (REDACTED) centuries old on an abandoned property, given wide berth by all surrounding trees, some of which suffered unnaturally knotted branches.

He discovered on this tree a large regular knothole, its back and sides invisible when light was shined directly into it. Any object placed within is swallowed in darkness and emerges knotted, regardless of rigidity, with no other damage.

Our collector arrived just fifteen minutes after the other party that stumbled across the tree, a teenage girl who had placed her left arm inside the knothole. No knots resulting from the MAC can be undone, again regardless of material, and while the victim was initially still able to use her hand the limb had to be amputated at the elbow (REDACTED) years later due to poor circulation, apparently from the gradual tightening of the knot.

After this incident the MAC was uprooted live and transported via flatbed to a private collection where it was replanted. There was as security concern, as a trail of knotted insects had been left all along the route traveled, but it was addressed before any incident by varmint control truck 2.

The MAC has been sealed inside a cylindrical box wrapped about the tree, fitted with a door and knotted key that cannot be copied, to prevent future access.

Current Collector: ‘Sisyphus Philosophizer’, senior rank

Notes from Collector: “I use it to make balloon animals for my kids’ birthdays. They take forever to pop. You wanna sanction me for using it, well you go right ahead and go to the trouble of ripping up those roots and hauling it across state lines a second time, on your dime.”

Current Status: active

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